Caste
does not result in economic efficiency. Caste cannot and has not improved the
race. Caste has however done one thing. It has completely disorganized and
demoralized the Hindus.
The
first and foremost thing that must be recognized is that Hindu Society is a
myth. The name Hindu is itself a foreign name. It was given by the Mohammedans
to the natives for the purpose of distinguishing themselves. It does not occur
in any Sanskrit work prior to the Mohammedan invasion. They did not feel the
necessity of a common name because they had no conception of their having
constituted a community. Hindu society as such does not exist. It is only a
collection of castes. Each caste is conscious of its existence. Its survival is
the be all and end all of its existence. Castes do not even form a federation.
A caste has no feeling that it is affiliated to other castes except when there
is a Hindu-Muslim riot. On all other occasions each caste endeavours to
segregate itself and to distinguish itself from other castes. Each caste not
only dines among itself and marries among itself but each caste prescribes its
own distinctive dress. What other explanation can there be of the innumerable
styles of dress worn by the men and women of India which so amuse the tourists?
Indeed the ideal Hindu must be like a rat living in his own hole refusing to
have any contact with others. There is an utter lack among the Hindus of what
the sociologists call “consciousness of kind”. There is no Hindu consciousness
of kind. In every Hindu the consciousness that exists is the consciousness of
his caste. That is the reason why the Hindus cannot be said to form a society
or a nation. There are however many Indians whose patriotism does not permit
them to admit that Indians are not a nation, that they are only an amorphous
mass of people. They have insisted that underlying the apparent diversity there
is a fundamental unity which marks the life of the Hindus in as much as there
is a similarity of habits and customs, beliefs and thoughts which obtain all
over the continent of India. Similarity in habits and customs, beliefs and
thoughts there is. But one cannot accept the conclusion that therefore, the
Hindus constitute a society. To do so is to misunderstand the essentials which
go to make up a society. Men do not become a society by living in physical
proximity any more than a man ceases to be a member of his society by living so
many miles away from other men. Secondly similarity in habits and customs, beliefs
and thoughts is not enough to constitute men into society. Things may be passed
physically from one to another like bricks. In the same way habits and customs,
beliefs and thoughts of one group may be taken over by another group and there
may thus appear a similarity between the two. Culture spreads by diffusion and
that is why one finds similarity between various primitive tribes in the matter
of their habits and customs, beliefs and thoughts, although they do not live in
proximity. But no one could say that because there was this similarity the
primitive tribes constituted one society. This is because similarly in certain
things is not enough to constitute a society. Men constitute a society because
they have things which they possess in common. To have similar thing is totally
different from possessing things in common. And the only way by which men can
come to possess things in common with one another is by being in communication
with one another. This is merely another way of saying that Society continues
to exist by communication indeed in communication. To make it concrete, it is
not enough if men act in a way which agrees with the acts of others. Parallel activity,
even if similar, is not sufficient to bind men into a society. This is proved
by the fact that the festivals observed by the different Castes amongst the
Hindus are the same. Yet these parallel performances of similar festivals by
the different castes have not bound them into one integral whole. For that
purpose what is necessary is for a man to share and participate in a common
activity so that the same emotions are aroused in him that animate the others.
Making the individual a sharer or partner in the associated activity so that he
feels its success as his success, its failure as his failure is the real thing
that binds men and makes a society of them. The Caste System prevents common
activity and by preventing common activity it has prevented the Hindus from
becoming a society with a unified life and a consciousness of its own being.
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